


Minutes and Lifetimes

by morganoconner



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Endgame, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: Before the Snap, Bucky wasn't much of anything to Sam.





	Minutes and Lifetimes

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy, hello fandom I've not written for in nearly three years, HOW ARE YOU TODAY?
> 
> I just. I have a lot of Bucky and Sam feelings, which is ridiculous since they were in this movie for all of maybe five minutes? But here we are. I woke up (after my third viewing last night) and had to write this in order to live. I doubt it's original - I haven't read much post-Endgame fic yet - but I hope it can act as a comforting blanket for anyone who needs it.

Before the Snap, Bucky wasn't much of anything to Sam. He was a mission, maybe, but tracking him was only as important to Sam as it was to Steve. To Sam, Bucky was a killer first, and then a stranger, and then for a brief time just a pain in Sam's ass. They maybe could have gotten to be friends, animosity eventually giving way to something less hostile, except Bucky went into cryo and the rest of them went into hiding, and the next time Sam and Bucky saw each other was the frontlines of battle, a battle neither of them were making it out of.

Point is, they never really knew each other, not then.

After the Snap…well, after the Snap is different for a lot of people, isn't it? It's only been a couple days, but it's clear that both the vanished and the left behind all have their demons, all the things that make them different people than who they were five years ago. For the vanished, though, it's something more, something Sam doesn't think he could explain in words. Sure, there's the way they came back to a world changed, and yeah, that's hard to reconcile. But that's not the important part. The important part is the way they cling…not to the people who haven't seen them in so long, but always, always to a fellow vanished. Sometimes it's their best friend. Sometimes it's their lover. Sometimes it's their worst enemy. Sometimes it's a complete stranger. It's a tangible, visible, visceral thing to other vanished folks. To the ones who understand better than anybody.

The Snap feels like it happened only minutes ago, but it also feels like lifetimes. It wasn't death, not the way Sam thinks dead is supposed to feel. Time was meaningless wherever he was, and space was relative. It felt like a void, if a void is a thing that can be felt. It felt like darkness, though there was no darkness to see and no eyes to see it with. Sam wasn't a person in whatever place existed to hold them, but he was conscious. He had no body, but he had memory, emotion, self. At the start of it, he remembers drifting, remembers knowing he was alone, remembers the terror.

He doesn't know how Bucky found him, or if it was him who found Bucky, or maybe it was just chance that brought them together, consciousnesses touching, then mingling, then falling into each other and refusing to let go of that comfort in familiarity, in the simple act of not being alone. It's impossible to describe, too fragmented now that they're back in the real world, but he remembers that there was no doubt then that it was Bucky with him in that place. There's no doubt now that it was Bucky who kept him going, kept him believing, kept him tethered. They never spoke, couldn't speak even if they'd wanted to. They hadn't needed to speak to know each other, and that knowing was enough for however long they existed in that place-between-places, that time-between-times.

Minutes.

And lifetimes.

Before the Snap, Bucky was nothing to Sam. After the Snap, he's everything. He's Sam's lifeline as Sam tries to reacclimate to a world that's moved on without them, because Bucky has experience with that, knows exactly what Sam is going through. Knows Sam better than anyone at this point, and so knows how best to help Sam through it, even if it's just by being there when Sam needs something to look at, to remind himself that this is real, that they're really here.

Sam knows that Steve sees it, before he goes on his mission, before…

Well, how could he not? Sam's sure it's there in every glance between them, every touch on the shoulder or tilt of the head. Every nod, every smile. After the Snap, Bucky and Sam don't say much to each other in words, because they don't need words to communicate. There are minutes and hours, days and months and years and lifetimes between them, and Bucky and Sam know each other in ways Steve could never have known either of them, even before he went and found himself a life fifty years in the past.

Sam wonders how things might have played out otherwise. Would Steve still have made this choice, if Sam and Bucky were the same people they'd been before turning to so much dust in the wind? There's no way to know, but he doesn't think so, doesn't think the Steve he knew would be capable of leaving his best friend, who was still a little bit broken, still trying to heal, to learn how to be human again before Thanos happened. Doesn't think he'd have left Sam, either, because Sam will always be the guy that gave up his entire life to follow Steve, mission after mission and safe house to safe house. But then Sam and Bucky went and found each other, didn't they? And whatever they're moving towards now, they're doing it together, no question. So yeah, maybe Steve realized they didn’t need him anymore, not the same way they had.

Sam doesn't begrudge him his choice, to live his lifetime in whatever way gives him all the happiness he deserves. It'll be hard without him, and Steve will always be Sam's best friend no matter how different they are as people now. But Sam gets it, and Sam knows he'll be okay. They'll all be okay.

He looks at Steve, at the ring on his finger, the joy in his eyes, the peace in the slope of his shoulders. Looks down at the shield resting on his own arm, the weight solid and the responsibility immense. Looks across to Bucky, that steady gaze and a smile full of reassuring warmth.

Sam and Bucky shared an eternity in a finger snap. But they have time, still. Time to figure out who they are now. Time to become whoever they can be.

They have these minutes, and future days. They have next week, and ten years from now.

They have a lifetime.


End file.
